How Initiation Used To Be From Divergent
by ega5255
Summary: Dauntless initiation wasn't always quite as brutal.
1. Chapter 1

Here we are at another brutal initiation, another fight to determine who is "brave" enough. I was content with the way things were in initiation until Max completely changed and warped it into something painful, something wrong. I was in Max's initiation class and he was a snobby Erudite transfer, always criticizing the other initiates, always telling people how they couldn't fight, no matter how hard they tried. He finished top of the class, chose a leadership job, and changed the best things about initiation (though not all). He changed the best things about Dauntless. So, let me tell you how Dauntless initiation used to be.

"Jump"! I yell flying in the air. We have just chosen our factions. I chose Dauntless, naturally, because it's where I grew up. Once I land on the rooftop, I look and see everyone else has jumped too. I notice one Candor girl is on the net connecting the roof to the train tracks because she didn't jump far enough. The purpose of the net is to keep us safe; they don't want anyone falling 40 stories to their deaths. But, it is still a test of bravery. Even though there is a net, you still have to jump from high up, and to some, that's a little frightening. Not for me. I'm used to jumping out of moving trains; I've done it since I was 5.

"Everyone over here!" yells Jahn! He's one of the instructors. "I trust you all enjoyed that." Glancing at the scraped knees, cut elbows, and scarred faces of the transfers I think, _maybe not. _"Now, for this next exercise, each of you is going to jump in this hole." He says it so casually I almost laugh. "What's at the bottom?" asks a small Candor girl, fear trickling into her voice. "That" replies Jahn "is for me to know and you to find out." Everyone around me looks scared except me, the rest of the Dauntless born, and a tall Erudite boy.

My best friend, Orion, runs and leaps into the hole. I have always been jealous of how she looks with her long curly black hair, and piercing green eyes. When she reaches the bottom she yells up, "Come on Rena, its fun!" She is talking to me. I run jumping into the big black hole. "Whooohoooo!" I yell with pleasure as I fall. A couple seconds later I land with a soft thud on some sort of mattress. I roll over to Orion laughing. "You were right that was fun." I hear a yell as the tall Erudite boy, Max, I think, soars toward the ground.

Once everyone has landed Jahn jumps and introduces us to the two people standing by the landing site who I never even noticed. "This is Sara and Kalon. They will be your instructors for initiation. Sara will be the instructor for the Dauntless-born and Kalon for the transfers. Initiation will be staged in three parts. The first will be based on physical activity, the second on standing up for others, and the third on facing your fears. You will be ranked on how you do and then you'll choose your job. You will choose based on your rankings, first place chooses first, second place second, etc. But don't worry, you'll all make it through initiation, unless you quit, and most of the jobs are okay. He pauses, letting the information soak in. "Sara and Kalon will now lead you to your dormitories."

The next day I wake up at 7:15, change; eat breakfast, than go to the training. We will not be training with the transfers until stage three. The training room we will be using smells of dust. I'm not surprised considering it hasn't been used since last year. Orion nudges me and points to the guns we will be using. At first I think we're using real bullets and that scares me a little, because Nain, a girl in my initiate class, doesn't like me so much and I wouldn't be surprised if she accidentally on purpose shoot's me in the leg or something. But, when I look closer, I breathe a sigh of relief and see that they're plastic. Still, it might hurt a little if she hits me.

"Good morning." says Sara, as you might remember, our instructor. "Everybody pick up a gun and two rounds of bullets. This morning we will work on shooting. After lunch we will be working on throwing plastic knives." She says the word plastic extra loud because she knows some of our class can be kind of violent. She grabs a gun and a loads it with a plastic bullet. She inhales, aims, exhales, and fires. Her bullet hits towards the side of the center, but still in the center, impressive. "Okay" she says, "Now you shoot."

I load my gun. _Inhale, exhale, aim, __**fire!**_ I hit dead center. Sara comes over to me looking impressed. "Wow, I didn't know you could shoot so well." At that moment I feel very proud, but put on a cool face. I can't let anyone know it's the first time I've ever hit the center. I've been trying for ten years and didn't hit it once. Until now. After about five minutes of feeling extremely proud of myself, I look around me and see how everyone else is doing. I gawk when I see the Max has shot every single one of his bullets, and every single one hit the center. Now he is walking around trying to tell other people how they should shoot their guns. But he's not being very nice about it. When he reaches me I tell him, "What makes you think you can just walk around telling other people what to do?" "Well", he says in a snobbish, matter of fact voice, "Sara said since I was so great at shooting, I should help the people whose skill level isn't as, developed, as mine. Here's a tip." He says this in a voice so quiet I can barely hear him. "Actually try to hit the target more than once." I bite back the urge to punch him and give him a fake smile. "Thank you for the tip." He's right; I only did hit the target once today, even if it was the center. Then I shoot and hit the target.

After lunch, it's time to throw knives. I have always hated throwing knives. I stink at it and I just hate it. When I throw the first one, I miss by about 6 feet.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dang." I mumble as I miss the target yet again. Orion nudges me and points to her target where a knife is stuck. "I hit the target!" she whispers in an excited voice. I look at how everyone else is doing and smile when I see Max has hit the target only once, and barely. "Hey Max! Actually try to hit the target more than once." I just realized, why is Max training with the Dauntless-born? They must have moved him up because, I hate to say it, he's really good. "I wouldn't be talking," he snaps back. "Have you hit the target? Oh right, you haven't."

Lunch today is my favorite, mac and cheese, tater tots, and best of all, chocolate cake. I really love Dauntless chocolate cake. I sit down in between Orion and a boy from our initiate class, Sam. "Are you stocking up for the winter or something? That's a lot of food." Sam says staring at my plate. "Hey, it's my favorite. Remember how much food you got on Chinese food day?" He blushes and I laugh and lightly punch him in the arm. "Rena," says Orion, "Are you scared for tomorrow, when we start fighting?" "No." I state, and I'm really not scared. "I'm confident I will win my fight. And it will be especially easy if I'm against you or Sam." I say laughing. "Plus, we're using fluffy boxing gloves and shoes so no one gets to hurt, right?" "Oh yeah, but just so we're clear, if we get paired to fight, I'd whoop you're butt."

In the afternoon, we prepare for tomorrow's fights. Sara shows us a few punches and kicks to maneuver into our fights. After she shows us how to punch and kick, I start doing it. It stings my hands, but I enjoy the feeling. It's a good way to get all my anger out and just let loose. I'm really enjoying this exercise. I throw a punch, and as my hand makes contact with the bag, it starts to bleed. It really stings; I should probably get a bandage. "Sara, do you have any sort of gauze to put on this?" "Oh dear, that looks like it really hurts. I'll get some disinfectant." As I wait for Sara to get the bandages, I see Nain, oh I hate Nain, hitting really well. I hope she and Max get paired so at least one of them will get slightly hurt."

"Everybody get up!" shouts Sara. It's 4 o'clock in the morning, what is she doing? "Get dressed and meet me in the Pit in 5 min." "Ugh!" I groan as I roll out of bed. I look at Orion and ask, "Do you know what we're doing?" "Yes!" she replies excitedly, "My brother was an initiate three years ago and said this happened to him, we're playing capture the flag!" "Yay!" I squeal! "I hope we'll be on the same team." After we get ready me and Orion go downstairs and grab a gun and some paintballs. We were a little late so we have to run to catch the train. Once we get on, Kalon explains to us how to play. "Sara and I will each choose teams. One team will get off first and hide their flag; the other team will get off a few minutes later and hide their flag. Then, the teams start hunting for each other's flags. If you're hit with more than 5 paintballs, you're out and can't help anymore. The first team to get the others flag wins." "Sounds simple enough." I whisper to Orion. "Okay," continues Kalon, "Sara, you choose first." "Okay," replies Sara, "I choose Max. Then Kalon chooses. He chooses Orion. It goes on like this for a couple more minutes when I hear my name. I'm on Kalon's team. I'm excited that Orion's on my team, but Nain is also on this team. She whispers in my ear, "You better not lose this for me." I bite back a rude retort and look at who's on my team, me, Orion, Nain, my friend Kat, and some transfers I don't know. Our team is okay. We get off first and hide our flag in a shady grove. We decide that half of us should search for the other team's flag, and the other half should protect ours. Me, Orion, and some transfers are in the searching group. I'm grateful to be rid of Nain. As we walk through the trees, I tell everyone to be silent because I have good ears and will listen for voices. After about ten minutes of searching I hear something, it was very faint, but I'm sure I heard someone's voice. I start walking in the direction I heard it and gesture for the others to follow. One of the transfers asks what we're doing and I put my fingers to my lips to signal silence. He still looks confused so I whisper, "Trust me." I creep towards where the sound came from and hear more voices. I can tell my fellow teammates can hear them too judging by the mischievous smiles on their faces. We all get really close to the other team to the point that we can see them. I whisper back to my team, "Everyone choose someone to shoot and shoot them six times in a row so they're out. Then we steal the flag." I say the last sentence with a wicked smile on my face. I chose Max to shoot. "Okay everyone, fire on three." Orion instructs. "One, Two, Three." Bang! I hit Max once and he turns around. Bang! Bang! Bang! I hit him three more times. I take a couple seconds to shoot the last one because I don't want to miss. Bang! I hit him in the chest. Then I run forward feeling amazing and grab the flag. Cheering a little louder than necessary, my half of the team carries me back to where our flag is. Nothing could ruin this night.

**Until…**


	3. Chapter 3

I wake up in the infirmary. Why does my head ache so much? I was just informed that it has been two days since we played capture the flag. The nice nurse taking care of me says, "Someone found you lying on the grass after the paintball game. You had been shot with the paintballs many times in the head until you were knocked unconscious. No one knows who did it, because everyone had a paintball gun at the time. Although, our guesses are that it was someone on your enemy team in capture the flag." Max. Of course, who else hates me enough to do that, (besides Nain, but she was on my team and I helped her win.) When I get back to training I'm going to… training, I missed the first day of fighting, now I am sure to lose points. Max must have been trying to keep me out of training so I would lose points. Why would Max want to keep me out of training? Was he jealous of my fighting skills? It's not like I'm much competition for him. He could probably cream me in a fight. Why?  
My thoughts are interrupted when Sam and Orion walk into the room. "How are you feeling?" Orion casually asks, glancing at my face which is probably covered in bruises. I want to tell her the truth, that my head is throbbing terribly, but seeing the worried smile on her face I decide to lie.  
"I'm fine." I don't want to leave because my head throbs painfully, but to fully convince Orion I'm okay I must act like I want to go. "Can I go now?" I ask the nurse.  
"No." she replies. "You have a slight concussion and can't leave until tomorrow." She says softly. I look at Sam and wince when I see there is a big bruise on his arm and shin, they must not have enough protective gear. "I'll leave you three to talk." says the nurse. As she leaves Orion starts chatting about training. Apparently, she was paired to fight Nain and she creamed her. Sam says otherwise, and that Orion lost.  
"Why do you have those huge bruises?" I butt in. "I thought they give you soft boxing gloves and soft foot covers so you don't get too hurt."  
"Well," replies Sam, "I was paired with Max and he kneed me pretty hard, but don't worry, I kneed his stomach, he fell down, and didn't get up for more than ten seconds."  
"I have to go." Orion says. "I told Kat I'd meet her for dinner."  
"Okay, I'll be there in a minute, if they're almost out of cake grab me some." replies Sam.  
"Kay!"  
Once Orion leaves, Sam looks me in the eye and says in a dead serious tone I've never heard him use, "How are you feeling?"  
"I'm fine." I tell him. More lies, Sam is my friend, he won't think I'm weak if I tell him the truth, but I still can't bring myself to tell him how much my head hurts, how angry I am at Max, and how much I want to cry, because I don't want Max to go on taunting me and hurting me my whole life. I feel so weak, and I'm not proud about it. "Rena." His voice is starting to sound angry. "How are you feeling, really?" I don't know if I should tell him. What if he tells everyone? I'll never live it down. I am Dauntless; I'm supposed to be brave. But Sam's my friend; I don't think he would tell anyone. I decide to tell him and hope he doesn't hate me.  
"Why didn't you just tell me the first time I asked you?" asks Sam once I tell him. "It's not something to be embarrassed about, and as for the crying thing, there is nothing wrong with it. You can cry, it's only me here, and it won't make me think of you any differently. Don't you think I've ever cried? Remember when I fell off the pit railings, when I was dared to hang on them, and when I broke my leg? Well, I cried then. I waited until I was alone in the hospital before I did because I was embarrassed, but I still cried, and I'm okay with it." When he says this I am truly shocked. I'm not surprised he's cried before, I mean, everyone cries at one time or another, but I am shocked he'd share this story with me, and a little touched. I don't know why, but I burst out crying. I cry about everything there is to cry about. I cry like this for ten minutes before I calm myself down and stop. I am surprised, but it makes me feel a lot better. Sam looks at me with worry, because one of the cuts on my face has reopened and is bleeding. He rushes to grab a bandage and sticks it to my forehead. "How do you feel now?" he asks.  
"Better." I reply. "I think I'm going to try to stand up." As I shift my weight to my feet on the cold tile floor, my head starts throbbing again, and I almost fall, but Sam grabs my arm and steady's me. "I'm okay." I say and he lets go. I walk around a little to test myself out and decide I am okay to walk. I walk to the freezer and grab some ice. "Put it on your bruises." I instruct him.  
"Rena I'm fine."  
"No you're not, put some ice on your bruises now or I'll make myself pass out."  
"Fine." says Sam. When I hand him the ice it slips, and we both reach down to grab it and bonk heads.  
I wake up about ten seconds later on my hospital bed again. "You told me if I took the ice you wouldn't pass out." says Sam in a joking voice. But he also sounds worried. How did I get to my bed from the floor? He must have carried me, but I don't say anything. "Maybe you should stay in bed for now."  
"Okay." I say and my voice sounds weak. Why does Sam have to see me like this? I am so fragile, like I could break any moment. Am I starting to like Sam? I can't think about that now, not until training is over. But I guess Sam thinks differently because he leans down and kisses my cheek. Then he leaves.


	4. Chapter 4

_Sorry I took so long to update! Please leave a review; it really encourages me to write faster! It only takes a minute! BTW: Thanks for reading this story!_

The doctors finally allow me to continue training two days after my encounter with Sam. When I walk into the training room, they are on the last day of fighting, also the last day of stage one. I'll probably be ranked last since I've missed so many days of training. I'll probably leave the training room bruised and battered because I'm still weak and could pass out easily. On the last day of fighting you don't use the fluffy boxing gloves and shoes because you've been 'trained enough to protect yourself', so that will only make matters worse. The winner is declared when someone has been down for ten seconds. I see I'm partnered to fight Sam; Sara must have been informed of my recovery. Wait, I have to fight Sam! He is about a foot taller and much broader than me. I look at him and he looks conflicted. Why would he be conflicted? He'll probably just push me down and apologize later, that's what Sam does. Then I remember the kiss on the cheek. Is that why he is conflicted? He doesn't want to hurt me? I realize I'm right. I walk over to him. "Sam, it's okay if you beat me." I say even though I still want to win. My voice is still a little weak and quiet, and Sam must have noticed. "No it's not okay", he says. "Not when you don't have a chance. You're still injured and you're trying to hide it but I can tell." "You think I have no chance?" I say as I raise my eyebrows. "Well, I guess we'll see."

When it's our turn to fight, Sara calls our names and instructs us to shake hands. As she counts down from three I feel something wet and sticky hit the back of my neck. I turn around and see Max with a straw in his hand and a wicked grin on his face. _Ugh. _I have to win this fight so Max will give me some respect, so Sam knows I CAN fight, and because I need more points. I really do have to win this fight, and I have to win it fair and square.

"1!" declares Sara. Sam looks sad but he throws a punch anyways and I block it. I'll have to protect my head because I'm not fully healed, and one good hit from Sam anywhere from the neck up is sure to make me pass out and he'll win. I punch him in the elbow and he gives a slight, barely noticeable, wince." He sweeps his right leg under my legs and I trip and fall. I hit the ground hard. It doesn't hurt that much but by the guilty look on Sam's face you'd think I almost died. Suddenly, I have a plan! I decide I'll act like I can't get up, and wait till Sara gets to nine, when Sam thinks he's won, and spring up and knock him down. Sara starts counting and I put on a pained expression and act like I'm trying to get up, but can't. "3, 4, 5, 6." Now not only Sam, but also Orion looks worried. "7, 8, **9**." I spring up and punch Sam as hard as I can in his stomach. Then, I sweep one of my feet under him and knock him down. He yells. I place a foot on his back and press down so he can't get up. Sara starts counting. "1, 2, 3, 4." Sam tries to get up, so I press my foot down harder. "5, 6, 7, 8." He keeps struggling but can't get up. "9, 10." I won!

For some reason Sara doesn't sound pleased when she announces my victory. I expected people to tell me, "Good Job!", or, "Way to Go!" But all I get is glares and looks of disappointment. Why? During Po and Kat's fight I ask Orion, "Why does everyone look mad at me?" Orion gives me a look of disappointment. "You really don't know, do you?" "No." I reply. "Rena!" Orion exclaims. "You played a sick trick on everyone! You fell down and acted like you couldn't get up, and everyone thought you couldn't move your legs, everyone thought you were, at least temporarily, paralyzed! That's why Sam looked so terrified and guilty. He thought he paralyzed you! "Oh." Is all I manage to say. I walk to my room too guilty and embarrassed to come to dinner. _Why did I do that?_ That's all that I think. I want to apologize to Sam. He is probably still at dinner. When I enter the dining hall, he's sitting alone at a table. I'm sure people wanted to sit with him but he just wanted to be alone. That fun, joking Sam is gone, at least for now. I walk to his table and ignore the stares. When I sit across from him, he doesn't object, just shoots me a look of disappointment then looks away. This is worse than him yelling at me. Why won't he yell at me so I can apologize and we can move on? But I know he won't. "I'm so sorry." I say quietly. Is that all I can say? I'm sorry? Weak. But is there anything else to say? "Rena." Sam gets out. "Why?" he whispers. "What do you mean?" I say, even though I know perfectly well why. What did I scare and hurt him for? "Sam, I don't know what I was doing and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for scaring you, than humiliating you. I'm so sorry." A single tear rolls down my face. In reply Sam whispers, "It's okay." Good. He sees I never predicted the outcome of my actions, that I never thought that people might have thought I was paralyzed, and that I never wanted to hurt him. But he wasn't done. "But I think we should just be friends." Once he says it I'm not even surprised. How could he ever date a girl that scared and humiliated him? "Okay." I whisper. Two more tears roll down my face. Then I get up and leave.


End file.
